Adolescence | Netflix

Watched this in a single sitting. Very powerful; scary and sad.

Obviously it’s a drama but it just reinforces my view that everything that was hard about being a kid is soooOoOoo hard now with social media.

The one blip for me was the comically dippy role of the school staff lady - which caused a chuckle :p

Edit: hmm some wild takes in the thread.

If anything, the show was a cautionary tale about how ‘normal young people’ may get into unbelievable harrowing situations through a series of unfortunate events, including: modern adolescent pressures, failing school systems and even busy, well-meaning parents that assume their children are ‘doing ok’ because they’re not beating them.

Like the Sean Bean drama ‘Time’, it focuses just as much (if not more) on the ‘wider grief’ and aftermath as it does the incident itself.

^^^ ‘Time’ (following a drunk driving incident) is well worth a watch for those that haven’t seen it. Very similar to this.
 
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Am I the only one who thinks social media changes nothing? Kids and school. It's always been a different planet. Their own rules, their own world, completely detached from reality. Parents seem to have this idyllic view of childhood. No idea where that comes from, it was never like that with me. Social media and the internet are a good thing, as far as I am concerned. The ability to communicate easily and gather information far outweighs the negative aspects. I suppose that's just me, but I feel that my life would have been very different if I had access to that much information when I was a kid, and such a fantastic way of communicating with each other. I think that people can't remember what it was like to not have the internet and not be able to text each other!
Sure, there are casualties. But I can remember lives ruined at my school through ignorance. There will always be casualties and there will always be nutcases. Nothing has changed there. I suppose there is some difference, though. In my day threats were common, but they weren't followed through.

Anyway, good series. Certainly, pause for thought.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
Am I the only one who thinks social media changes nothing? Kids and school. It's always been a different planet. Their own rules, their own world, completely detached from reality. Parents seem to have this idyllic view of childhood. No idea where that comes from, it was never like that with me. Social media and the internet are a good thing, as far as I am concerned. The ability to communicate easily and gather information far outweighs the negative aspects. I suppose that's just me, but I feel that my life would have been very different if I had access to that much information when I was a kid, and such a fantastic way of communicating with each other. I think that people can't remember what it was like to not have the internet and not be able to text each other!
Sure, there are casualties. But I can remember lives ruined at my school through ignorance. There will always be casualties and there will always be nutcases. Nothing has changed there. I suppose there is some difference, though. In my day threats were common, but they weren't followed through.

Anyway, good series. Certainly, pause for thought.
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The bad bits have always existed but I do think social media has changed the game.

Children now have a 24/7 pressure to maintain a brand and participate with social media activities. Don’t allow your kid to join in? He’s just become ostracised, misses out on ‘the talk at school’ and an easy target.

There is no off switch that allows healthy segregation of time away from both friends and enemies. They are there at the dinner table and in bed when trying to sleep.

People have always been bullied but now insults can become ‘meme-ified’ and retain a permanence because of how they exist in readily shareable durable mediums. A cruel act can be multiplied 100x by everyone piling on with a ‘like’. It’s very cruel.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
Am I the only one who thinks social media changes nothing? Kids and school. It's always been a different planet. Their own rules, their own world, completely detached from reality. Parents seem to have this idyllic view of childhood. No idea where that comes from, it was never like that with me. Social media and the internet are a good thing, as far as I am concerned. The ability to communicate easily and gather information far outweighs the negative aspects. I suppose that's just me, but I feel that my life would have been very different if I had access to that much information when I was a kid, and such a fantastic way of communicating with each other. I think that people can't remember what it was like to not have the internet and not be able to text each other!
Sure, there are casualties. But I can remember lives ruined at my school through ignorance. There will always be casualties and there will always be nutcases. Nothing has changed there. I suppose there is some difference, though. In my day threats were common, but they weren't followed through.

Anyway, good series. Certainly, pause for thought.
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I disagree. I'm of the MSN generation where Facebook was only a thing in maybe the last 12-18 months of my final year at school. I didn't have a phone with mobile internet.

Cyberbullying was a thing but it stopped when you stepped away from the computer. You didn't have it in your pocket 24/7. Everyone was less connected online so pile-ons couldn't happen organically like they do on social media. You generally connected with your friends on MSN, you weren't exposed to all the people in your year group or school. There was some horrible stuff on the internet (gore sites etc) but you had to go looking for it, it wasn't pushed at you by an algorithm.

As an adult, navigating some of this stuff is hard. I've struggled with disordered eating in the past and it's really insidious how the likes of Instagram gently push you from healthy spaces (sports journalism, athletes etc) to accounts pushing EDs etc. I can deal with it with my adult resilience but that would have destroyed me as a kid. On a different but related note, I was filmed at our work Christmas do singing karaoke. I was totally sober and being very careful (partly because of this risk) but having a video taken without my consent and then passed around our Teams channels etc left me feeling totally violated, regardless of how harmless the content was. The mistakes you make as a kid now can so easily ruin your life.
 
I found the whole thing was well done, and although I found the single take per episode interesting, I felt it hindered things for the sake of a technical feature / artistic composition. I think that “Boiling Point” utilised the single take much much better.

As for the content, I thought first 2 episodes really gripping, and although still quite intense, it tailed off after that, possibly because they had to fill the 45-50 minutes with minimal content and a single take.
The subject matter was interesting and thought provoking.

On a side note, the only disjointed part I saw was the car doing an emergency stop near the end of episode 2. That was the only part that broke the immersion for me.
 
Finished it this evening. Thought it was tremendous and usually I hate over hyped shows (particularly TV). I don’t have kids but it was hugely emotional. The lessons to be learnt were well done, not in your face and as others have said very much along the lines of a “cautionary tale”.

Social media and kids is truly, honestly terrifying.
 
Interesting how prominent the social media factor is in the come away from this for so many people rather than the bigger picture of just how unhealthy society at large has become, it is that shirking of responsibility which has been a large factor in the whole thing developing.
 
Rroff said:
Interesting how prominent the social media factor is in the come away from this for so many people rather than the bigger picture of just how unhealthy society at large has become, it is that shirking of responsibility which has been a large factor in the whole thing developing.
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You have 93000 posts on OCUK ;)
 
Rroff said:
Interesting how prominent the social media factor is in the come away from this for so many people rather than the bigger picture of just how unhealthy society at large has become, it is that shirking of responsibility which has been a large factor in the whole thing developing.
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I don’t think that anyone in the thread, even the TV show, was suggesting that the person responsible for the murder was someone other than the murderer…? Of course it is the murderer that is responsible.

The social media aspect is more that it enables an environment for people to reach unhealthy mental states. The relevant questions are more about how vulnerable people can (and should) be safeguarded.

We, as a society, do have a responsibility to take precautions on behalf of people that don’t know better. Of course, any ‘intervention’ needs to be proportionate and, sometimes, just awareness, dialogue and discussion - such as that coming out from this TV show - is enough.
 
Nitefly said:
I don’t think that anyone in the thread, even the TV show, was suggesting that the person responsible for the murder was someone other than the murderer…? Of course it is the murderer that is responsible.

The social media aspect is more that it enables an environment for people to reach unhealthy mental states. The relevant questions are more about how vulnerable people can (and should) be safeguarded.

We, as a society, do have a responsibility to take precautions on behalf of people that don’t know better. Of course, any ‘intervention’ needs to be proportionate and, sometimes, just awareness, dialogue and discussion - such as that coming out from this TV show - is enough.
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It wasn't about responsibility for the murder but people's take away largely seems to be seeing it as part of the cause and social media = bad, rather than it being a symptom of a bigger problem.
 
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